The Armor We Wear
by SilverRose208
Summary: A comparison of Shepard's attitude towards her now vs. two years ago leaves Ashley feeling like 'something is rotten in the state of Denmark.'  Follows my Mosaic series.  M!Shep & Ashley romance.


_Disclaimer - I'm not affiliated with BioWare, don't have any claim to the Mass Effect universe or its characters, and don't receive any compensation for writing this. Yadda, yadda, yadda._

_A/N: This follows the Mosaic Project. I suggest reading the Prologue first, but it's designed to be a series of stand-alone vignettes so it isn't really necessary for continuity's sake. Shep is a Colonist, War Hero, Vanguard, and Paragon … not that any of this necessarily comes to play in this installment. _

* * *

Her legs were heavy, two unwilling accomplices being dragged with each step through the suffocating haze settling over the industrial city. The fog was not naturally bred – thick and foul-smelling, the recycled and purified air streaming through her helmet tainted with the heavy, metallic edge of chemicals, either by the suit's failure or by her own imagination.

"Mission's over, and this crops up," Shepard sounded from behind her. His voice was slightly muffled and distorted through the filter of his mask, but it was plainly dripping with irritation. "Drop point's due south - no way around but through."

He edged past her towards the thick, milky yellow cloud, the ceramic plates of their hard suits scraping quietly as his shoulder slowly and carefully brushed against hers. To anyone else, it would have been nothing; to Ashley, the simple scrape was too deliberate. She looked up, eyes straining through the thick air enveloping their bodies. They had rules, careful constructs of professionalism: when armor was worn they ceased to be all but soldiers. She set her jaw, lips pressed together tightly, as her stomach dipped with a sickening lurch - as instinct, came to tell her, this is the start of something she was not going to like.

"Could be an ambush," Shepard snapped sharply, pausing at the edge of the fog. "Keep your eyes open – Ash, stay back with me."

The feeling persisted.

"Grunt, take point. You can handle yourself out there."

And there it was.  
And I _can't_?

She winced as the stepped deeper into the haze, as the air, hot and heavy, smacked against her visor, murky streams scrubbed away and smeared with the back of a gloved hand. The outlines of a dark figure to her left – Grunt – happily traipsing through the muck, kicking at chemical-soured rainbow puddles as large feet splashed and splattered across the turf. The outlines of a dark figure to the front – Shepard – an inverse beacon, a blight, against a cotton foreground – still, waiting, nearing her with each stepped she coaxed from stone legs.

_The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,  
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes  
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,  
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains_

The dark figure, voice obscured by mask and gauzy air spoke simply: "Stay close." And like the action had been before, there was no deeper meaning she was able to intone. She clenched her jaw, gloved hands straining tighter against the weapon borne in front of her.

His was a simple order, but she knew that it meant more than he was admitting – a new-found protectionism, an unhappy reliance, a complete disregard for the protocol they had agreed upon and established.  
This was not part of their bargain; they wore their armor now.

It was something she had heard before, long ago, when it had not been directed at her.

_- Stay close._

Her weight was borne on one side as the seat tilted slightly, sickening grunts and whirrs emitted from the Mako as it strained against the lightly-packed powder under tread.

"It's not too far up ahead," Shepard sighed, his head turned to look at the vehicle's third passenger, concern unreadable through the helmet or its filters – but she knew that it was there.

Ashley brushed a hand over the controls of the gunnery station, locking and powering-down the weapons. She'd read Shepard's decision before he'd ordered it: the vehicle would be abandoned in the blizzard, low visibility, and poor traction making it impractical to drive. He swiveled sightly at the noise, casting a small, appreciative smirk.

"The scanner shows a few geth ahead, a turret and shock troopers," their third passenger responded quietly, still seemingly oblivious to the silent agreement her two human companions had reached. She turned at the sound of the vehicle powering down, icy eyes set in light blue skin widening in a delayed realization behind her visor, a dusting of freckles, carefully stenciled brows peeking from the top of a helmet. "But – it is a blizzard. And, it is _cold_."

Ashley snorted, biting back a sarcastic reply. Shepard eyed her expectantly, a brow inclining. It had been her suggestion to bring Liara to Noveria upon hearing that Benezia was present; and though she admittedly was not fond of the young asari, she thought better of any biting words at the moment. Working her fingers over the guards that secured her helmet into place, she exclaimed with a grin, "Just like home!"

"Your home is like this?" Liara asked, her painted brows furrowing.

"Not _this_ bad, exactly," Ashley drawled in reply, busying her fingers with the snaps on her helmet. "Not that I'm torn up about it."

Shepard cast her a strange look as he turned back towards Liara and nodded absently, struggling upright against the weight of the Mako, and bracing a hand against the door latch. "Williams, take point. You can handle yourself out there." He turned towards Liara again, his fingers tracing the latches to ensure his helmet was secure. "Almost zero visibility – easy to get turned around before you know it, and we can't wait here for the storm to pass. I want you to stay close."

A happy splashing returned to her to the present as the large outline of Grunt became absorbed by smoky vespers. The figure before her paused, his right arm twitching slightly as if it were fighting an urge to action. Please no, she pleaded, picking careful footsteps through milky puddles, through sour-green slush, through white-washed air, through curdled mist. Don't you _dare_ take me by the hand like I'm some child.

To help, as one would a comrade; or to protect, as a man would his lover. How much of man could be strained from soldier? Was it nothing but an act of foolish naivete to think the two able to be separated?

_Fair is foul, and foul is fair:  
Hover through the fog and filthy air_

More than two years had passed since Noveria.  
A lot had changed; but what had changed?

_- Take point. You can handle yourself out there.  
_It was something that was not being directed at her now. But it had been ordered of her then.

The snowfall swallowed their bodies, absorbing man and asari where they walked behind her. To be ordered to take point was a compliment, a sign of Shepard's trust and faith in her abilities.

And yet …

Ashley turned her head slightly, batting away the flakes accumulating on her helmet with an annoyed brush, her eyes falling on the dim outline of the pair a few meters behind her.  
And yet the rumors of the crew were proving true.

Her fingers worked across the arms of her hard suit, violently brushing the thick snow from where it had accumulated in short, angry jabs. It was an action of futility – the blizzard had already covered those places she had brushed clear just moments earlier – but it provided her some catharsis. She was heavy, weighted down, from the snow and from the conflicting emotion of the moment.

Why would she _care_ that Shepard chose to pursue Liara, to send her ahead while he stayed behind to protect her in some act of misplaced and old-fashioned chivalry? Liara had done fine on her own, and all knew it; but Shepard's protectionism … It wasn't anything worth being jealous about. So why _was _she jealous?  
And she _did_ care.  
And she hated both herself and them for it.

_And indeed there will be time  
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,  
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;_

She shook her head, pushing the thoughts of Noveria away.

There had been a time, once, when she had longed to be the one left behind with him. The moment came three years too late. It was not what she wanted anymore, and it angered her in ways ineffable that Shepard could not see it.

There had been two years spent without him, two years in which she had survived and prospered on her own.

There had been battles she had fought without him, that she had not needed him for.

And in the silence, in the darkness, in the interim of that two years when she had allowed herself thoughts of him, she had remembered he respected her and trusted her – as a woman, as a soldier, as a partner. And she held that dear.

There was armor she wore – a construct, a carefully-crafted shell – pieces of a hard suit assembled through time and experience. And Shepard had stripped each element away until she was left bare to him – but she questioned now how much of her form he had truly beheld.

_Time for you and time for me,  
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,  
And for a hundred visions and revisions,  
Before the taking of a toast and tea._

Shepard snorted as he tugged off his helmet, running a weary hand through his short-cropped hair. "Will you tell me why you're stomping about?" he muttered, fatigue casting deep, dark circles under his eyes, accentuating the wrinkles of his brow and about his eyes.

He was proving his ignorance even now.

Ashley unsnapped the gauntlets from her arms, shoving the pieces into the armor locker they shared. She was silent for long moments, concentrating on her task. "I never asked for that back there, to need to stay close to you because something might be ambush. I never needed it, Shepard, and I still don't," she finally hissed, her back turned to him. "I was _fine_ without you."

Shepard froze, his fingers dropping from the plates on his shoulders, his arms hanging limply. Slowly, he crossed the distance between them, still wincing from the sting of her barbs. He quietly slipped his fingers under the latches on her shoulders, easing the release of her chest plate.

"Were you really?" he asked softly.

She set her jaw, leaning forward slightly to allow the armor plates to slip from her chest. "I survived, didn't I? Shepard, there was a time when you trusted me to take point, to follow me."

He nodded quietly, fingers moving down her back as he unsnapped the other pieces of the hard suit covering her sides. "I still do, Ash."

Ashley half-turned, still stubbornly refusing to meet his eyes. "Didn't seem like it," she snapped, stooping slightly to work on the plates covering her legs.

Shepard froze, pulling his hands away from her sides. "Ash, that wasn't meant-"

"Just stop it!" she interrupted, angrily ripping away the remaining pieces of her hard suit. "Just stop it, Shepard. _You_ are the one who died – remember that."

He retreated quietly to the bathroom at the far side of their shared room, sighing as he turned on the water for a shower. Shepard pasued, scoffing lightly, as he caught his reflection in the mirror: he was still fully-suited. Swiftly and expertly, he removed the plates of armor covering his body and then the mesh bodysuit worn underneath, placing the items in a small and neat pile in the corner.

She would be fine. She needed space.

He stepped under the stream, warm and clear, water cascading over his head and dripping down his back, rinsing away the clinging stink of the fog.

A lot had changed in two years.  
But what had changed?

There had been a time when he could send her ahead, to lose the sight of her through a blanket of snow or a layer of mist. But now … He had known a life without her, and he had not been fine – and he knew that she had not been either. It wasn't to protect her, it wasn't that he didn't trust her. It wasn't that at all.

A warm mist filled the bathroom, creeping across the glass of the mirror, beading condensation against the metal of the closed door.

Ashley didn't understand …

That wasn't meant for you, Ash.  
It was meant for me.

The door to the bathroom edged openly slightly.

"Hey, I ... I didn't mean that."  
"I didn't either - you know that, right?"  
"Yeah ... I just ... It's hard for me sometimes."  
"It's hard for me, too."

The door opened wider; another mesh bodysuit fell to the floor next to where his lay.

Neither wore armor now.

_to wound the autumnal city.  
So howled out for the world to give him a name.  
The in-dark answered with wind._

Works referenced:  
Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock  
Shakespeare, Macbeth  
Delany, Dhalgren


End file.
